He had nothing personal against any of the Danes on those ships below him. More than that, he knew they were being used just as surely as he'd been used during his brief career as one of Tilly's mercenaries, and that the subtle mind which had truly chosen them as tools resided in Paris, not Copenhagen. But that didn't matter. However they came to be here, they were a mortal threat to everything in the universe that mattered to Hans, and he would remove that threat. He and his brothers from the future, he thought, gazing down at the white arrowhead of foam curving around to attack the enemy.
He watched the Outlaw circling around, and even as he kept his wary hand light upon the stick, a part of his mind was down on that arrowhead with Eddie and Larry, accompanying two more of those he loved into battle.
Tesdorf Vadgaard watched the same white arrowhead-and the two behind it-slice through the water and felt an even greater sense of awe than he had when he first saw the flying shape. A corner of his mind insisted that he shouldn't have. That the miracle of flight far surpassed anything that might happen upon the mundane surface of the sea. But that was the point. The very concept of humans in flight was so alien to him that even now the flying machine seemed more like a mythical creature from some fabulous tale than reality. More than that, he was a professional seaman. He'd spent two-thirds of his life mastering his craft, and he knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that no vessel in the world could do what these were doing.
It wasn't simply the way they moved without oars or sails, however profoundly unnatural that might seem. It was the speed at which they moved. For the first time in his life, Vadgaard found himself completely unable to estimate the speed of another ship. He'd never seen one move that quickly, never imagined one could. Whatever his guess, he knew that it was low, that they were moving even faster than that, and he felt his jaw muscles tighten as he considered what that impossible speed would mean for his gunners.
On the other hand, he told himself, studying the oncoming threat through his telescope once more, he saw no sign of artillery aboard any of them. For that matter, the more he gazed at those sharp-sided hulls, the more he realized that they couldn't mount guns. There was simply no place to put them.
But they had put something on their foredecks, and Vadgaard muttered an oath under his breath as he cudgeled his brain, trying to remember everything from the spies' reports he had paid so little attention to.
One thing was obvious, he decided, watching how smoothly the Americans maneuvered their vessels-they had some means of communication. They couldn't possibly have responded so quickly, moved so adroitly and with such assured coordination, if they hadn't. It must be another example of that mysterious "radio" from the rumors, and he felt a deep, burning sense of envy as he contemplated it. No seaman who had ever attempted to maneuver more than two or three ships could not have envied it. Not when he watched the other ships under his command slipping and sliding into action any way they could, all too often completely blind to opportunities he saw because there was no way for him to tell them about it.
That wouldn't happen to the Americans, he told himself. Which made them even more dangerous than the impossible speed of their vessels and whatever mysterious weapons they mounted might otherwise imply.
And speaking of weapons…
He steadied his glass on the lead American. It was the biggest of the three, and Vadgaard nodded to himself as he realized the other two were falling back slightly. Obviously the American commodore was aboard the lead ship of his squadron. He intended to open the attack himself, holding his other two units in reserve-a luxury his ability to communicate with them made possible. He could afford to commit them separately because of his ability to control their movements with as much confidence and sureness as he did his own flagship.
That much was obvious, but what interested Vadgaard most intensely at the moment was that angular framework on the flagship's foredeck. It was obviously a weapon, but not like any weapon he'd ever seen before. He stared at it until his eye ached, watching the enemy flagship moving steadily northeast along the Mecklenburg coast. It wasn't a gun, so what was it? It looked like…
His blood seemed to freeze suddenly in his veins as he remembered the stories about what the Americans had done to the Spaniards at the Wartburg, and to German armies at Badenburg and the Alte Veste. They'd used several new and demonic weapons no one had ever heard of, one of which had spread hellfire across the Spaniards trapped in the ancient castle. True, the tales Vadgaard had heard sounded as if the Americans had used an old-style catapult of some kind to launch the bombs used at the Wartburg. There was certainly no room for such on the boat hurtling its way toward him, any more than there was for cannon.
But… there had also been tales of other weapons. Like the ones they called "rockets." Intellectually, Vadgaard suspected that the chilling tales of the range, accuracy, and devastating effect of the American weapons must be exaggerated. After all, the tales came from Spaniards and Germans, not Danes! And all questions of national courage aside, anyone so resoundingly defeated by such novel weapons would be certain to overestimate their effectiveness. And not necessarily just to cover the humiliation of their defeat, either.
But whatever Vadgaard's intellect might suspect, his emotions were something else. They didn't care about his intellect, and he swallowed hard as the American flagship altered course once again. The American commodore had obviously reached the position of advantage he'd wanted. Now he was turning to launch his attack, maneuvering his units with cold-blooded, professional skill.
The silhouette of the enemy flagship altered as it settled onto its new course, and Vadgaard lowered his spy glass.
He no longer needed it to see the American ship. Not when it was so close and aimed straight at his own.
"Here we go!"
It was scarcely a proper military announcement, but Eddie felt no temptation to reprimand Larry for it. Not under the circumstances.
The Outlaw made its final turn, the engines' snarl rose in power and pitch as Larry advanced the throttles, and Eddie reached forward and slammed the hinged steel plate of the rocket launcher's blast deflector into the upright position. He threw the old-fashioned dead bolt which locked it there, and glanced sideways at Larry.
His friend was leaning forward in the comfortable chair, a bit closer to the wheel than he had been, in order to peer through the heavy glass plate in the deflector. It wasn't very big, and from the way Larry was craning his neck, Eddie suspected that the launcher blocked even more of his forward view than they'd expected it to. He kicked himself mentally as soon as the thought occurred to him. They ought to have gone ahead and loaded the launcher and let Larry practice handling the boat with all eight cells filled and the deflector up. At least then his friend would have had a little experience managing the Outlaw when the launcher was no longer simply an open framework of welded steel rods.
But there was nothing they could do about that at this point, and Eddie leaned forward to peer through his own glass-protected slot in the blast shield. His was different from Larry's. In fact, his was positioned dead center behind the launcher, giving him an unobstructed view through what would have been its ninth cell. It was the crudest sighting mechanism conceivable, but it ought to work. Assuming, of course, that the axes of the other eight cells were accurately aligned with it. And that the rockets would fly straight.